


the longest hour.

by isoldewass



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, I’m so sorry, M/M, Nygmobblepot, completely out of character because apparently all my characters are me, i use the same decor because apparently such trivial details do not matter, loosely based on a prompt, only i have no idea who i am anymore, spoilers for s03, unnecessary angst, why did i sign up for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 10:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9718439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isoldewass/pseuds/isoldewass
Summary: She wasn’t her and he was different. This story could have had any number of outcomes. A penny in the air, a dice rolling, a wave that had not hit the shore.





	1. Isabella

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freckledandspectacled](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freckledandspectacled/gifts).



> hey hey @freckledandbespacetveld, i’m kinda sorry you got me.  
> but i have started this a month ago, long before the winter finale, and hey, they were quoting me on screen. it was a magical experience.  
> i have no idea where i go with these psychologies, i am sorry if things contradict (head)canons and each other. i’m in too deep. once again, i am sorry you got me.
> 
> Based on / inspired by this prompt. Well- it was certainly a point de départ.  
> "Canon Divergence : Isabella doesn't allow Ed to leave her, and on the night of their confrontation things go very sour when she takes measures to ensure he can't (maybe tie it in to her love for suicide pacts between lovers?). When Ed doesn't return that night, Oswald grows worried and then takes matters into his own hands (okay, and maybe a few thugs for backup) and rescues him. Hurt/Comfort follows for Ed (obviously a bit distraught after the experience), then confession time for Oz (who never thought Isabella was this unstable and regrets his earlier advice; it almost cost Ed his life and he would have lost him forever!), and they get together and live happily ever after. :D That's a lot lol and super specific... so much for 'prompt'. Basically all I want is Oz rescuing Ed from Isabella's evil clutches and then them being gay. (Well, as you can see I went with basically.)"
> 
> a) So, Nygma did love her, and I can not ignore that at all. He regards her from a practical point of view, so there is that.  
> b) Also, if I have a crush on Jim Gordon, everybody has a crush on Jim Gordon. I realise now that does not make it to the story, but i just want to say. Jim Gordon and Nygma. Jim Gordon and Penguin. Just- okay, you can leave me alone now.  
> c) you may notice nobody actually makes a decision. i always change the pov before i have to explain how one decides to actually do something. well, that’s because i have no idea how such things are done. (honestly, i myself prefer to like people from afar and wait for the crush to go away)
> 
> 'I gave you all' by Mumford and Sons was my soundtrack. This song, silence, and the constant "you are an idiot" to myself.

_You struggle to regain me when I’m lost you struggle to obtain me._

Not particularly, no. His life was fine. Two halves reconciled, a medical certificate on his hands, framed next to Oswald’s on the wall of a mansion, a job of crime and politics, an infuriating amount of paperwork, but he was no stranger to that. His life was fine. He had a friend in Penguin and a certain amount of respectability that was a given when you were a friend of a king. He had things ahead of him, ambitions and just enough of everything to make ambitions come to life.

Anyhow, Edward didn’t particularly struggle to insert a love pattern in his life. What he had seemed enough and what he wanted did not involve a blond version of a woman he had killed- Until he met her.

_Anthony and Cleopatra._

From the very start, Isabella was astonishing. A perfect end to a deeply flawed love story. Without being aware of her own importance, she completed the history repeating itself.

In the first ten seconds of each of their encounters, he compared her to Kristen, registering every resemblance and every deviation. It was like looking in a funny mirror (although for him, every mirror was funny), and she was a distortion, a curious thing that gave him a new perspective on life and made him revaluate his surroundings.

Isabella looked innocent. She seemed shy, but wasn’t, not with him, not ever.  
But he too went a long way from a forensic’s guy to mayor’s chief of staff, and a longer one still from the innocent Ed to the no longer insane Edward. 

She wasn’t her and he was different. This story could have had any number of outcomes. A penny in the air, a dice rolling, a wave that had not hit the shore.

Isabella was a brand new beginning. She was undecided, a clean slate for him to rewrite his own story, to erase a gruesome murder. A new chance. A whole life uninterrupted by his war within himself with strangling hands and kind words.

In the dim light of that shop, it seemed she was searching for more than a bottle of wine. She had a riddle on her lips, a smile in her eyes, and Edward was smitten.

 _Romeo and Juliette._

Seconds escalated into minutes, minutes went by and hours took their place. In her arms, on her chest listening to her heartbeat it felt surreal. Reminiscent. Nostalgic.

And if he tried really hard he could fall asleep thinking it was Kristen. She even smelled the same way. Meticulously, he inspected her body inch by inch. And, to his excitement, every detail he could remember about Miss Kringle he would find in Isabella. 

Sometimes, though, her little ticks, the things one can hardly control made him shiver. These things made him terrified. If she was playing a role, she couldn’t have done it better.

She was a perfect copy. A new set of possibilities, a chance to rewrite his fate, so why every time he took notice of just how perfect of a situation this was he could feel the panic rise up? She was a _perfect_ copy. Almost more than that- 

And then his racing mind would find its way back to the beginning of this train of thought. 

And if it didn’t, Edward would force himself to stop by bringing up some memories of rainy days in the mansion, of the night he fooled Butch, of the forest where he had said his goodbyes and met Oswald. His plans and aspirations, his ambitions always calmed him down. So he would return to his calm self, lying on her chest, listening to her heartbeat and to her breathing patterns.

And yet, after all that, a new kind of panic settled in. A new kind, but a familiar one. He was now terrified of possible outcomes, of what he might do to her. This fear wasn’t vague, this fear was already real.

He had asked Oswald to end things. 

He knew he would have this deep need inside of him, to take more from her than she could offer. Only- even in this she exceeded all expectations and let him be who he was.

She let him put his hand around her neck. 

_Othello and Desdemona._

She tilted her head as if in agreement when his hand tightened around her throat. A strand of her hair was loose and he wanted to tuck it behind her ear as much as he wanted to pull it until she winced, until her smile wavered and her facade broke.

Even the madness that was GCPD would not have been able to qualify her as his accomplice. Her hands were not on her throat, his were. Her breathing was slowing down, and yet she wasn’t fighting back. Instinctively, her limbs jerked, quite gracefully, but she did not fight for breaths. 

Her lack resistance was a resistance on its own, and it unlocked what he had tried so hard to fight against.

What a pale imitation of Kristen. _That was an accident. This wouldn’t be._

Kristen fought him, she had terror in her eyes, a panic that made a part of him never want to stop, while another part of him wasn’t aware of just how lethal he could be. This one- 

This one did nothing, heading to her demise, out of breath. Her complete abandonment of all survival instincts only made him care about her life. She pleaded to parts of him that were not killer, that were fragile and ultimately good. A truth behind the lies, a deeper level, a hidden thing that longed to unclench his fingers and bury itself between her ribs, in her heart.

This one still did nothing, standing there, looking at him intently. She thought she was in control. He wished she were. He really, really did wish she could command him now. The question in her eyes was being replaced by a thing he had not yet seen. A longing, and not for life. But he _had_ seen it before. In Gordon’s actions if not in his eyes. Nygma did encounter this particular behaviour of self-destruction. He knew it. 

And then he wished his second half would take over. He wished he would wake up in an hour, when a minute really would have sufficed to rid him of guilt, to be able to blame all the horror on his hidden self. But this was his choice, and her choice too, and this thing between them had just come to an end.

 _You and I._

Bruises appeared on her pale skin, like a necklace. A handprint. 

Her body made violent attempts to break free, her eyes, however, though watery and reddened whispered to him.

“I am not afraid.”

Her pulse was slowing down. Her body fought back. Tears in her eyes reminded him of human things, of sleepy mornings and friendly smiles and that one time his father had given him a supper instead of a beating. And of Oswald’s eyes, and of his voice and of his kindness.

In a way, right now he was kind too. He was committing a crime and doing a favour. He was sure of it. She smiled.

Isabella’s legs were giving up, her body grew heavier and his fingers tightened up once more. Here was the ending she was destined to give him, an ending he was destined to give her. A murder with no games of hide-and-seek. A killing with no victims, and no murderers. Just people in their places. Separate human beings on their crossing paths.

“You were created for me.” To make his life into a mess, to be his personal monster or a second chance, she was always meant to end up here. 

He didn’t mean to say that out loud. 

And yet- She wasn’t a monster, not even a copy. She was not Kristen either. Just a reminder of his victories, of his failures, of the life he could have had. 

The life he never ever wanted to be imprisoned in again.

He chose to kill the original, the love of his life, the woman who still haunted his mirror reflections. So why would he- Why did he choose to share a life with this one? The murder of Kristen was an accident at the time, but in the grand scheme of things, a scheme Edward could now see clearly, that second murder of his had become his turning point, a cornerstone reconciling him with himself, with the darkest and most thrilling things about him.

To Ed, Isabella had a function. To her, he was a catalyst. A personalisation of her fantasies, a projection of her desires, a set of traits and actions that made her fall in love so quickly, so irretrievably. He was what she dreamed of, and meeting him made her become the other half of those romantic creatures that die at the hands of their love.

“Have I created you?”

They were each other’s missing pieces, were they not? She found in him the demise she craved, the death that was missing from her existence. And he could find in her a thing he had ripped off, robbed himself off- granted, subconsciously, but still. He could trace the blood trail to the wound on his heart and put a bandage on it. Or he could rip himself apart bit by bit to be reborn anew. 

“You will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know why my writing feels so happy-end-ish, I just killed a woman.


	2. Oswald

“Save me.”

Words are still echoing in his head. Nygma’s words are all Oswald can hear when he goes to his car and drives to the given address. Somehow the fact that he had just been there that morning escapes him until the very moment he sees the building on the empty street.

Fists clenched, he runs up the stairs, wishing his leg allowed him to move faster. He also wishes he could call Jim and ask him for a favour, but their relationship has deteriorated to the point where calling him isn’t even in the realms of possibility, so he casts the idea away.

Oswald finds Edward sitting there.

Only this time he isn’t on the floor, tugging the corpse tightly to his chest. (At least that's how Oswald imagines Ed’s reaction to Miss Kringle’s demise.) Edward is sitting in the pink armchair, staring into the darkness of the room, strands of hair sticking to his forehead.

Isabelle’s body is on the floor. It looks different, it- she looks like those photos of Miss Kringle he had studied in newspapers. 

Long shadows and moonlight crawling through the window give her pale skin a translucent quality that makes people look like corpses and corpses look like ghosts. He wants to touch her, to know she is real and tangible, and most of all that she is really, really, finally dead. And by Ed’s own hand, no less. That is the best part of it all, and a smile tugs on his lips.

Oswald can feel joy rising and he turns his head because there is no way Edward needs to see him smiling at the sight of his dead girlfriend. _Ex-girlfriend?_

Semantics shouldn't matter in a moment like that, but his brain has already found a perfect word. _Dead._ Dead girlfriend has a ring to it.

“Isabelle”, he mutters under his breath and it gets him a tired “Isabella” out of an otherwise silent Nygma. Damn it. 

For a moment, Oswald wonders whether it’s necessary to make a point of saying her name right. Now that she is dead, it might be his way of showing his gratitude to the deity that had made the source of his problems disappear. 

Nevertheless, it was a reaction so Oswald feels allowed to break the silence.

“I was so worried when you didn’t show up”, he rambles on and on, assessing the situation, soaking it in. “I thought something terrible must have happened, I am so relieved-”

But something terrible did happen, and Oswald slips. He turns ever so slightly to see if Nygma caught him in his lack of empathy but Edward doesn’t even blink. His breathing is calm and steady, he almost looks relaxed in these macabre surroundings, but Oswald knows him too well to make that mistake. He sees Ed tugging at his shirt, his vest on the floor near the armchair, sleeves rolled up to the forearms. He sees a drop of sweat on Edward’s forehead, and the remnants of terror in between the lines of his face. 

And above all, Oswald still hears Ed’s voice over the phone. “Save me.” 

Oswald knows how to hide a body. Not that Edward doesn’t, but he wouldn’t be much help in his current state.

Once in the mansion, he goes straight to the kitchen to make some tea. Although it isn’t Ed who has been strangled, the gesture seems appropriate. Ed follows him around, a shadow catching up to him, footsteps echoing in the dark. 

They sit on the couch and Oswald offers him the cup of tea. 

Edward does not notice it. He is looking in the fireplace, past the fire. Again, he looks calm, but there is a trace of restrained panic in his controlled moves and in his silence. 

Oswald can’t decide what to do and how to act because it is a new situation for them. Edward has just committed a murder, and no joy has followed suite. That was the very foundation of Nygma’s character, and with that gone, it is impossible for Oswald to be sure whether the man in front of him is the same. It is also impossible to determine the course of action and the reaction it would provoke. Cup of tea still in the air, he does his best to decide on the next step.

Oswald puts the cup down on a table and decides to go with a joke.

“A few more days and I would have killed her.” He was never the one to successfully lighten up the mood, but this time he beats his own records. In his mind it sounded like a joke, whereas said out loud it hovers over him in a silent space. 

You do not mock your friend’s grief, Oswald.

Things like that, things that shouldn’t have been said but were, need to erase themselves instead of rippling though thin air until some response is given.  
And right now Edward is not giving him any kind of reaction. Oswald looks at him and prays for Nygma to be too lost in his own thoughts. For a moment, he considers leaving Ed alone to deal with his tragedies. He desperately needs a change of scene, a change of pace. There isn’t a single reaction he’s not afraid of.

And then a more terrifying thought pops into his head.

_He isn't joking, is he?_

Edward turns his head.

“You would, wouldn't you?”

Silence feels heavy and the ticking of the clock adds up to the tension. Oswald puts his hand on Ed’s knee. Raindrops start hitting the roof. 

“No, Ed. I wouldn’t.”

Neither of them knows whether that was the truth. 

Oswald watches the tremor in his own hand. This isn’t a good sign. He is so relieved to have Edward back. And that joy, that bliss that emerges on his face is completely unbecoming, inappropriate, out of sync with Ed’s pensive look- 

There is nothing more inappropriate than a smile in the face of grief, is there?

“I love you.”

It is a lightning bolt. Coming out of his mouth words burn his lips as they have burnt his insides. He hears them lingering and then dissipating into the air, and silence becomes tangible. Even the rain has stopped. Maybe there was no rain to begin with, maybe it was just his racing heart, unable to proceed everything he is feeling at a normal speed. Maybe this is why words have escaped him without his accord.

He does not know what to do next. His breathing is erratic when he remembers to inhale.

He imagined this conversation would go in a number of different ways. He was only sure saying those words would be the hardest part. And now he has said them without noticing, just like breathing.

Having said them does not settle anything. He is shaking and he is terrified instead of being relieved. Love shouldn’t be so frightening.


	3. Edward

“A few more days and I would have killed her.”

A strange feeling invades all of his being. A kind déjà vu, only deeper. Suddenly, he has a sense of loss in the pit of his stomach, as if she was taken from him. As if her death was a curse and not a gift.

“You would, wouldn't you?”

And it feels strange to miss something that he has just ruined, something he chose to erase from existence. A path not taken haunts him for a while, but then Oswald’s hand touches his knee and all the misunderstanding of reality suddenly shifts away to reveal a deeper truth.

“No, Ed. I wouldn’t.”

Nygma can’t really tell whether or not Oswald is lying or joking or being sincere. And ultimately it does not matter. Because there is absolutely nothing Oswald could say or do to disappoint Edward, not with his hand on his knee and that smile on his face, and that messed up hair and dishevelled look: all from dealing with Isabella’s corpse.

Oswald puts down a cup of tea and only now does Edward notice it. They have already been on that same couch, with a cup of tea between them. He had bruises that night, he hadn’t even met the woman twice dead. Oswald is smiling at him, and it’s such a welcome contrast. Oswald just looks different from all the things he had looked at before-

“I love you.”

Ed turns his head to see the source of that proclamation.

Oswald is clearly panicking. His hand is still on Ed's knee. His fingertips are burning up and his eyes travel to Edward's face. 

Nygma starts cleaning his glasses with his shirt. He never does that, it only ever smudges them more, he is already behaving out of character, and these words have just added to the long- the longest night of his life. 

That ghost of a sentence, that whisper he could have easily missed were it not for his acute hearing, he wished for nothing more than to never have heard those words, for Oswald not to have said them, because it’s too much, and for heaven’s sake, he had just strangled a woman he loved. And why does he think about her in the past tense now?

“No, no - I don’t think you do- You- you-“ Edward is blabbering, but he can’t stop and words are pouring from his mouth to compensate for a complete blank that takes hold of his mind.

His own heartbeat is way too erratic, he should calm down. He looks at Oswald and it is as if his body stopped working altogether. Oswald is looking at him- well, quite frankly, just as he has always looked at him. Only now Edward can make sense of it all. And it makes so much sense: everything, everything. 

And it is terrifying that he could miss such a thing. And it is even more terrifying that he couldn’t, didn’t see a pattern before.

“Your mother died. And your father died. It is only natural you would want to see things in a way that is-“ Edward catches his breath and continues.

“We all make mistakes like I did with Isabella.” Apparently, in a matter of seconds, his brain has come and accepted this conclusion on the background. 

Turns out his love for her could be ended with a killing. Well, a very specific set of things led to her murder. And he didn’t quite feel like he didn’t love her anymore, but still, he was able to kill her. Granted, she gave him permission, but he did all the rest, he chose to proceed and to tighten his hand around her throat. 

His fist clenches involuntarily and he stops himself before his glasses break. 

Oswald’s expressions shifts from frightened to something deeper, darker. It is usually a welcome change that leads to elaborate schemes, to gaining power, to murder. It has been a long time since the threat was directed at him, but even at that time he didn’t mind being on the receiving end of it.

Edward goes on.

“What I’m trying to say- A bandage on a permanent wound is not a solution. That is why I had to- “

_To do what I did._

“To kill her.”

_I think._

“I know that now.”

Once again, his mind refuses to provide him with the rest of this speech, so he stops talking and waits for Oswald to make a move.

Oswald does. He puts his hand on Ed’s neck, drawing him closer. He leans in and it is intense on its own.

_Think coherent thoughts._

“What are you doing?” _Except for violating my personal space and touching me without my consent?_

Oswald lifts his shoulders in the shadow of a shrug.

The look they share, the new found proximity of their bodies startles him. Nothing has happened and everything has at the same time, but Ed hasn’t even considered pushing him away. This thing he sees in Oswald is reflected in him. They are close and he does not find himself needing space, just a few more moments to soak it in, to fully understand. 

Edward leans in too and Oswald’s other hand rises up to his neck. He pauses and everything goes still. 

Ed moves even closer to Oswald whose unblinking eyes don’t really suit the moment.

A new feeling takes up the entire room. They belong. All of it suddenly feels wonderful and warm and- like home. "You remind me of home.” Not his home, no, Ed didn’t have that, but the concept, what home is supposed to be. 

“I don't want to remind you of home. You hated yours.”

Oswald is calm now as if he has come to peace with whatever is happening between them. His voice is no longer quavering, he looks calm, relaxed- Both of them are no longer terrified.

Oswald kisses him and he tastes real. Hallucinations and plans dissipate, mirrors clear of smoke and reflexions. A hot wave of pleasure covers his entire being. A remedy to all that is bad, to all that is broken and does not need repairing.

They are what they are, and neither of them needs to be saved.

Vices are crawling from under his skin, seeping from his tongue, all the things he never knew he needed, all the things he ever wanted, all is tangled together in that one moment where he is unable to let Oswald go, because he does not need to hide anything now, and he can put his green suit on and go plot things to come home to this man who plots and kills and kisses, and the possibilities are astonishing, and yet he does not want that future, but this very present. 

He lingers in that moment. Clock’s ticking doesn’t matter, for the first time in months, it stops its own countdown to something greater. The sublime is now.

**Author's Note:**

> if u feel like it, tell me what does not sound/read right. i don't speak grammar and keyboard.


End file.
